Centripetal acceleration on turbine blades

 This old power station generator is in a museum in Manchester. It has cut away glass panels so that you can see the turbine blades.

 The board says 3000 revolutions per minute which turns out to be an angular velocity of 314 radians per second.

Estimating a radius of 1 meter for the rotating apparatus, that means that there is a centripetal acceleration of 314 metres per second per second on the blades. Compare that with 10 m/s/s for gravity and you can understand why the blades have to be tough.